Before we get into where Wix falls on this spectrum, let’s talk about how you would use a free website. This is a service that’s targeted to individuals launching hobby sites and solo entrepreneurs launching micro businesses. For those who need to keep their launch costs to a minimum, the free site can be a decent option. But there are drawbacks, and you shouldn’t go down this road unless you are comfortable with those drawbacks.

First, truly free websites come with ads on the pages. Whether those ads negatively impact your business really depends on what business you are in and how you are using the site. Check out your competitors’ sites to see what they do. If you are trying to sell something on your site–particularly something that’s readily available elsewhere–think about the sales impact of having competitors’ ads on your pages.

Second, if your site takes off, you will eventually want to transition away from the free platform. You may not be able to take your site’s design with you and you may not be able to redirect the free site. If you can’t redirect it, you will have to contact all of your customers and give them your new URL. That can get expensive, and could result in lost business.

Free sites by Wix

I am not personally a fan of free websites in general. The issue I have with them is that the site designs are boring and not adaptable. Wix breaks this mold with a full selection of modern, flashy templates. The templates are organized by category, and the offerings include eCommerce sites, business sites, consulting sites, real estate sites and several other hobby- and interest-oriented categories.

You can preview the templates, but you have to register on the site to launch the editor. You can also build your site from scratch, using Wix’s editing tools.

Another nice feature is the detailed tutorial section, complete with how-to videos.

Premium upgrade

Wix also offers a premium upgrade, in the event you grow out of the free version. With the premium service, you can get rid of the ads and use your own domain name. You also get extra storage and bandwidth, plus access to Google analytics data.

Like other subscription-based sites, Amazon WebStore uses templates and widgets to jump-start the site design. The user, however, has a substantial amount of control over the site’s look and feel. Custom images, java script and CSS can be implemented within the templates. Template master pages can be modified at any time, so that site-wide design changes are applied quickly.

The WebStore also incorporates features that have been shaped by Amazon’s years of online selling experience. For example, users can set up their WebStore with a high upsell cart, mini cart and best sellers. SEO features on the site include descriptive page names and metadata overrides.

The aspect of WebStore that Amazon is really pushing, however, is the low start-up cost. As noted above, online retailers can build an Amazon WebStore stores with no IT investment at all. Amazon’s even offering a 30-day free trial. The catch is that there are fees involved (of course), both monthly and per-transaction. More specifically, those who don’t use Amazon’s other business services must pay 2 percent per transaction plus $24.99 monthly to use WebStore. Users also have to accept Amazon’s payment processing fees, which are slightly more competitive than PayPal’s fees, except for small transactions. In short, online retailers could end up paying as much as 4.9 percent per transaction, plus the $24.99 monthly.

Now, using Amazon’s WebStore should reduce hosting costs and, possibly, improve conversion rates. The users who will really find this solution appealing are those that can reduce or eliminate IT staff by using WebStore.

The WebStore solution actually gets more interesting when you consider Amazon’s supplemental marketplace and fulfillment services. Those who combine WebStore with an Amazon.com presence and Amazon’s fulfillment services can run an online retail store without even getting their hands dirty. The extra services come at a price, but in return entrepreneurs get a lean, semi-automatic business structure.

The good

Cost. The Payvment cart is free to use. While there are other free shopping cart scripts out there, none install with a single snippet of code. This aspect of the Payvment solution is likely to appeal to smaller online merchants who don’t have an in-house or on-call webmaster.

Facebook integration. Payvment makes a Facebook storefront app, which can be integrated with its Web-based shopping cart. With the Facebook app, merchants can quickly install a storefront on their Facebook page; this provides maximum visibility for the products and an easy shopping experience for potential customers. The Facebook storefront can also be used on a standalone basis, which may appeal to online retailers who already have another cart system installed on their site.

Design-friendly. The cart can be installed to an existing Web site without making major changes to the site’s design. Visually speaking, the primary changes would be the addition of “add to cart” buttons next to the products. The shopping cart itself remains hidden until a customer clicks on an “add to cart” button; at that point, a pop-up appears to show the customer what items are in the cart. The customer can click a check-out button on the pop-up whenever he’s ready to complete the transaction.

Portability. Say the customer leaves the site without completing the purchase. The selected items remain in the cart. If the customer navigates to another site with a Payvment cart, he can add more items from the second retailer. When he’s ready, he can check out once and complete the transaction with both retailers at the same time. This is the most unique aspect of the Payvment solution. Unfortunately, it’s not a relevant feature until Payvment can get its shopping carts deployed all over the Web. In other words, if only a fraction of one percent of e-commerce sites use Payvment, what are the chances the user will ever see his shopping cart again?

Affiliate link support. The cart can be used to process in-house products as well as affiliate products. If a user clicks on an affiliate link for which the Payvment cart is deployed, the item just goes into the cart. The user can then continue browsing the site and adding more items to the cart. A merchant with a targeted selection of affiliate products may realize increased revenue as result, because the user is kept on the site longer. Without the Payvment cart, the user would be redirected to the product page on the first click.

The bad

PayPal only. The cart is built to work with PayPal only. Merchants, particularly the established ones, often have access to less expensive methods of payment processing. New online merchants may not mind using PayPal at first. But there comes a point in the revenue growth trajectory when PayPal is no longer the best option. When the merchant grows out of PayPal, that merchant also grows out of Payvment.

Add to cart buttons. OK, yes, the Payvment cart installs with a single line of code as noted above. But there’s a huge caveat. The merchant must create custom “Add to cart” buttons for each product. The shipping cost for a product is specified within that code; the merchant defines a flat rate for one piece and an additional flat rate to be applied when the user buys more than one of the same item. This is limiting for a few reasons. First, the merchant must define a single shipping rate for all customers, domestic and international. In practice, this probably means the domestic customers end up paying more for shipping, because the merchant won’t want to lose money on international sales. Secondly, the customer is assessed a separate flat rate for each separate product purchased. If the customer buys a deck of cards, a toothbrush and a pair of earrings, he is assessed three separate shipping charges–which is likely to total more than a shipping charge calculated on the entire order. More robust shopping cart programs sum the weight of the products purchased and use that number to calculate actual shipping costs with a specified shipper.

Further, if the merchant experiences a change in shipping costs for any reason, each product button must be rebuilt to reflect that change.

A related issue is that the Payvment cart does not appear to offer any type of inventory tracking mechanism. Therefore the merchant must track items in stock separately; when a product sells out, the button must be manually removed from the site.

Merchants can write the button code manually by modeling it from a sample provided by Payvment, or they can use Payvment’s auto-builder. The latter looks to be foolproof. The sample code, however, is problematic. As of this writing, there’s an error in Payvment’s sample affiliate link (one of the variables is spelled wrong) and so it doesn’t work.

Comparable to other solutions. With the exception of the affiliate link support, Payvment’s cart, as of right now, isn’t all that much different from checkout solutions offered by PayPal and Google Checkout. Now if Payvment could realize some saturation across the Web, then the portability of the cart becomes a factor. But is saturation realistic for a solution that isn’t appropriate for large retailers who have a lot of SKUs? The only thing Payvment has going for it in this regard is the Facebook app. If that takes off, then Payvment might have a chance.

The ugly

Compatibility problems. I tested Payvment’s cart on a Joomla-based site with affiliate product links. Frankly, I couldn’t get it to work properly–even after I corrected the flaw in the sample code. It appeared there was a javascript conflict. In this case, using the Payvment cart would have required detective work and, possibly, fundamental changes to the site–which goes against everything Payvment’s pitching.

Assuming you are starting completely from scratch:

1. Decide what product you want to sell and to whom
2. Learn as much as you can about your target customer: what motivates him/her to buy, where he/she likes to hang out, etc.
3. Find a source for your product
4. Estimate your costs to buy the product
5. Start researching marketing/promotional efforts that would allow you to reach your target customer and tell them about your products
6. Estimate the costs to run your business and allocate a big chunk to marketing
7. Find a trusty web developer/designer and copywriter
8. Define your brand image and create an appropriate logo and tag line
9. Get your site up and start promoting it

What do you think — did I miss anything?

See the original conversation here.

Key takeaways from the survey include these data points:

• 93% of respondents said that free shipping offers encourage them to buy more.
• 66.6% of respondents said they’d increase their online purchases if returns were free.
• 67% of respondents said they buy items in stores to avoid shipping costs.

Bottom line: absorbing the cost of shipping your customers’ orders can pay big dividends in the form of happier customers and bigger orders.

See the survey data here.